


Awake and Alive

by 9VaniaStein9



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bucky likes pranks, Child Soldier, Child Soldiers, Civil War has been resolved, Cryofreeze (Marvel), Cute, Dates, F/M, Feels, Fic title from Skillet's song Awake and Alive, Fluff, Healing, I do not own Marvel, I like Winter Widow but I thought that this could be nice, Kidnapped, Kidnapped Child, Kidnapping, Marvel - Freeform, No Sex, No Smut, Orphan - Freeform, Orphanage, SET AFTER HOMECOMING, Self-purpose, Soldiers, Super Soldier Serum, Tony Stark and Pepper Potts get married eventually, Tony Stark likes pranks, a character pulls a Widow and gets shot to protect someone else, everybody needs a hug, faith - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 03:52:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 19,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11683458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9VaniaStein9/pseuds/9VaniaStein9
Summary: A soldier with no memory before she was recruited.Her mind was taken over with a device that gave her owners control of her.She was trained as a soldier, and treated as a weapon, just like the other three-hundred and forty-five Experiments.By the age of twelve, she was the last one alive.The missions came when they saw the need to use her, sometimes with years in between, her body put in cryofreeze.With every mission, every brainwashing, every serum dose, every time they took her memories away, she became more and more a soldier.Experiment 346.





	1. Experiment 346 Released

**Author's Note:**

> I like Winter Widow a lot, but I just wanted to see this. I like some of what I have, so I want to see what you guys like. Please give me feedback, and tell me if I missed anything. This is more of a setup chapter, so I'll probably update on the second of August. It will have some action.  
> I might update every Monday, and maybe some updates on other days. :)

“No fair!”

“Is, too!”

“You’re faster than I am,” the little girl whines to her friend.

“Max!” An angry voice bellows, the owner of the voice bursting from the small apartment door. “Get in here!”

“I’m sorry,” Max whispers to his friend as he walks back to his dad.

“It’s okay,” she says softly, understanding.

According to Max’s dad, filthy Germans should not play with the Jews.

She’s used to it now, even with her young age, as the looks that are aimed at her back and the insults hurled to her face are not unnoticed. Hitler is hated in America, and the ones who surround her, the citizens of America, some of them hate Germans.

But she is American. Her mother was German, and her dad was Jewish. She wants to be pure, so she tries to keep on the right side, against hate and cruelty, no matter whether anyone thinks that has to do with heritage.

She hops over a rope strewn on the street, passing two young men who are playing around.

“Come on, Buck,” one says.  
“They’ll let you in the army eventually,” the one who has to be Buck says. “But until then, quit picking fights.”  
“They swung first.”  
“And harder. Why are you letting yourself get beat to a pulp?”  
“Somebody has to.”  
“Then come find me first, and then we can beat the…”  
The little girl turns a corner, the men’s voices fading, and she passes a bakery that is closing, slipping into the alley on the way to the orphanage.

 _Maybe I won’t have to see Mrs. Hattie,_ she thinks, stepping over a pipe. _They fixed the drain pipe. I could climb to the room._

“Little girl,” a raspy voice says, a uniformed man leaving the shadows to stand in front of her. “Where are your parents?”

She turns and runs, but a hand on her arm yanks her back, a needle puncturing her neck, a scream lodging in her throat as her sight blurs, blackening.

 

~

 

The years were cold and dark, training for four years until she was sent on a mission, and by then, she had no freedom.

Her mind was taken over with a device that gave her owners control of her.

She was trained as a soldier, and treated as a weapon, just like the other three-hundred and forty-five Experiments.

By the age of twelve, she was the last one alive.

The missions came when they saw the need to use her, sometimes with years in between, her body put in cryofreeze.

With every mission, every brainwashing, every serum dose, every time they took her memories away, she became more and more a soldier.

Experiment 346.

 

~

 

“Rogers, hurry up,” Nat’s voice orders over the coms.  
“I can’t find my shield!” Steve says, searching under the couch. “I just saw it before lunch.”  
“Where’d you see it last?”  
“In my room, on its shelf.”  
“Are you sure?”  
“Yeah, I’m sure! I don’t just misplace huge metal disks!”  
“I doubt he c _ould_ misplace it,” Banner comments.  
“Has anyone seen Cap’s shield?” Natasha asks, and is met with no’s and nuh-uhs. “Stark.”  
“What?”  
“Give it back.”  
“Who says I took it?” He says defensively, his face contorted into an innocent look.  
“You took Clint’s bow last week.”  
“That’s because he’s a-” Clint says, but Tony cuts him off.  
“Okay, okay,” he says, grinning. “I hid it in the pantry.”  
“How’d you know it was hidden enough? I go in there all the time.”

“Look up. I stuck it to the ceiling.”

Steve walks into the pantry room, looking up to see his shield. Rolling his eyes, he grabs the stepstool—the shelves are high enough that unless one can fly, the Hulk is the only Avenger who can reach the top—and he tugs on it, expecting it to come down easily, but it stays stuck, the sticky almost webbing keeping it up there.

“What did you do? I can’t get it down.”

“Try the can of spray I hid behind the flour.”

By the time Steve gets back to the Quinjet, Bucky and Nat have already warned Stark enough that Steve doesn’t have to say anything.

 

~

 

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I’ll hold them off,” Natasha says, talking about the goons that just popped up like something in a Whack-A-Mole game. “Go when you’ve got a shot.”  
Before Steve can object, she’s in the middle of about twenty guys, all of them holding weapons of some kind, and Cap sprints to the entryway into a room with dimmed red lights.  
“I’m going to need some help,” Cap says into the coms, after he sees how many containers are in the room.  
“Little busy,” Natasha grunts.  
“We’ve got about thirty of Hydra’s goons following us,” Stark replies, and then there’s a big crash. “And the Green Giant just took out a wall.”  
“Uh, guys?” Clint says. “There’s more.”  
“More files?”  
“No… I take it you found them. I’m more worried about who’s coming than the files.”  
“More Hydra?”  
“Lots more. And they’ve got what looks like a highly explosive canister.”  
Something explodes beyond a wall, and Cap goes soaring into files, the papers flying everywhere as the cabinet-wall breaks apart.  
“That hurt,” he mutters as he gets up on the other side of the wall, having crashed into a cement one.  
He had assumed that the cabinets were against a cement wall, but that idea is quickly proven incorrect, as Cap stands in front of a capsule—cryofreeze, it looks to be—a sleeping young woman with no hair, wearing a hospital gown, inside.  
It looks and operates like the one Bucky was let out of about a year ago, and Cap was there when the doctors and nurses turned off the machine. It’s not that he didn’t trust them, but he did want to make sure that his friend was safe. So, he watched how they did it.  
After a minute of figuring out the machine, he turns it off, and opens the door after it lets him. He immediately checks her vitals, the machines that are hooked up to the capsule beeping.

“Intruder alert. Experiment 346 released.”


	2. The Experiment Is Out of Its Chamber

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jarvis is alive, Friday did not replace him, Vision is still here, Wanda is not a witch, but still has powers, and Bucky is not hurt besides emotionally. Bucky Barnes has his metal arm, has been trying to get back to a way that is comfortable, and Stark did not find out about his parents dying in that gruesome way, so Bucky is fine, and no one hates him. Also, Sam Wilson is not mean to Bucky, since I don't know why people seem to think he's so rude to the poor dude. Those are the changes to the story, I think. Maybe there could be some more, but those are my preferences. Why kill Jarvis? Poor child.

Her hearing came suddenly, the sound of fan blades slicing the air flitting into her mind. Her skin felt the soft sheets, her head on a soft puffy thing that is so comfortable that it isn’t.  
Her eyes open to see a ceiling fan, the light from a window pouring in.  
She slowly sits up, shaky, fog invading her brain, dissipating as she tests her feet, seeing how she looks just as she did the last time she was used, as usual.  
The room is empty except for the bed and the ceiling fan, a simple door closed.  
She walks to the door, opening it to peek out of the room, looking right and then left in the hallway.  
One hand runs over her head, her eyebrows furrowed as she feels the way her head is lacking hair.  
_The upcoming mission must be like last time,_ she thinks.  
She looks at her gown, understanding how many times she’s woken up to be tested on.  
“Ma'am, you need to be in bed,” a man says, and the young woman turns around, standing firm, even as the man towers over her.  
“Location, sir?” She asks, standing at attention.  
“Avengers Tower, in the medical wing.”  
“Avengers. Doctor, the mission information has not been downloaded.”  
The nurse answers with a puzzled look.  
“Are you one of the doctors?”  
“Uh, no, I’m Carey. I’m one of the nurses.”  
“Where are the doctors?”  
“I can help you get back to bed, and then-”  
“The Experiment is out of its chamber. What is the mission?”  
“Mission?”  
“The Experiment is out of its chamber. What is its mission?”  
“Let’s get you back to your room, and then I can get Dr. Cho,” he says.  
She nods, following him back to her room, passing closed doors on the way.  
“Stay here.”  
The doctor comes in a few minutes later, finding her in the exact same spot the nurse left her standing.  
“I am Dr. Cho,” she says politely. “Can you tell me your name?”  
She answers with a confused look.  
“You are a doctor?”  
“Yes,” Dr. Cho replies. “Let’s check your heartbeat.”  
“You are a woman. The Program does not allow female doctors.”  
“The Program?” She asks, listening.  
“Yes. Is this not the Program’s new quarters?”  
“This is Avengers Tower,” she says. “Let’s check your reflexes, okay?”  
Dr. Cho has the woman sit on the bed, using a small rubber hammer on her right knee, immediately kicked, sent flying into the wall, crumpling to the floor.  
The patient leaves the room without remorse.  
“Excuse me,” Carey says as she walks down the hall. “You should be back in-”  
As he touches her arm, she grabs his throat, pinning him against the wall.  
“You are not the Program. Experiment 346 must return to the handlers and complete its mission.”  
“Please,” Carey gasps, squirming.  
She keeps her hand on his throat until his face goes red, his eyes rolling into the back of his head.  
  
~  
  
“Sir,” Jarvis says to Tony, who is fiddling with one of the Iron Man suits, the fingers locked in one position. “You told me to alert you when our visitor woke up.”  
“Yup. Be right there.”  
Tony continues working for the next ten minutes, until Jarvis speaks again.  
“Sir.”  
“Yeah?”  
“She just injured two medical officers.”  
“On it.”  
  
~  
  
She walks down the hallway, searching every room for her owners.  
A man stands at the end of the hall, wearing a metal suit, leaning leisurely against a wall.  
“What are you? Man, or metal?”  
“The man who has to pay the medical bills of the two people you just hurt. I hope you left them alive."  
“The Program does not have any concern for casualties.”  
“The Program?”  
“The Experiment must return.”  
“What experiment?”  
“Move, or be moved.”  
“Oddly enough, I’d like to see you try.”  
She does a murder strut right up to him—reminding him of Bucky—and grabs his neck, only to be blasted back into a wall.  
“Jarvis, got a tranquilizer?”  
“Sir, this young woman seems to possess superior strength.”  
“Jarvis, answer my question.”  
“Yes. Shall I prepare the sedative?”  
“Yeah, and do me a favor and text the Capsicle.”  
Stark watches the woman rise from the hole in the wall, her fury rolling off of her in waves.  
“Wait, call him.”  
“Hello?” Cap’s voice comes over Tony’s speakers in his headset.  
“Hey.”  
“Before you ask, no, I didn’t tell Bucky to glue your suit.”  
“So he’s the one who glued it? I can’t get the glue off, and-”  
“I didn’t tell him to.”  
“I’m-”  
Before Tony can blink, he has been thrown into a wall, crashing through it, landing on the floor.  
“Stark, what was that?”  
“That chick we rescued from Hydra is fine, except for the cuts I gave her by the wall she broke," Tony grunts out. "She threw me into another, though, so we’re even.”  
“I’m coming.”  
“It’s not much of a-”  
Tony grunts as the woman drags him across the floor by his foot, yanking his feet out from under him, intending on using that lovely-looking knife set she saw a few doors away when she was peeking into some rooms.  
She makes it to the door just as the elevator opens, Captain America stepping out.  
“Captain America,” the woman says, her eyes going glassy. “Program mission: eliminate threat.”  
“Great.”  
Her eyes going back to normal, she throws Tony at Cap, the blue-clad one trying to catch him so he won’t break anything, ending in them both falling to the floor. As the two heroes mutter their complaints, the woman who threw Tony murder struts up to them, sending a punch Cap’s way as he grabs his shield, preventing it from connecting to his person, and he uses it to pin her against the closest wall.  
She stares at him blindly as they grapple, her strength competing with his own, as Stark prepares a needle filled with sedative.  
Cap catches sight of the needle—as does the woman—and he turns so Tony can reach her neck.  
“Mission failed,” she says, and then sinks to the floor.  
“Uh...” Tony says, still holding the needle, looking at the unconscious woman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a blessed day!


	3. Not an Experiment

She wakes up in the Hulk container, immediately rising to break free, but then her head feels like it has been hit with a brick, the chip in her skull humming.

“Sir, there’s a malfunction,” she says, knowing that the chip will allow her owners to hear her. “The Experiment does not contain the knowledge of where base is.”

The pain increases.

“Sir.”  
“The Experiment has failed,” the man says, the chip downloading the knowledge into her brain. “It must be punished.”

“The Experiment will break free,” she says, surveying her cell. “It will return.”

“The base has been destroyed. Experiment 346 self-destruct activated.”  
She waits for her brain to break into a thousand pieces, but after a moment of waiting, the man speaks again.

“Self-destruct malfunctioning. Backup termination activated. The Experiment has no further missions for the Program.”

“Sir-”

“It will not return to base.”

“Sir, the Experiment can decamp.”

Silence./p>

“Sir.”

“Communication terminated,” a pleasant robotic voice says.

 

~

 

“Maybe she has a radio,” Steve says, looking at the screen showing the woman standing at attention, as if there is an official standing before her.

“We didn’t find anything, other than that Hydra symbol on the tag of her hospital gown.”

“She mentioned the Program,” Bucky says, watching from his spot with his back to the wall, remembering what Stark had said. “It’s a part of Hydra. I remember that much.”

“Maybe she has a communicator in her ear, like a piece of metal implanted in.”

“It was a conversation. Do you think the person on the receiving end could hear her?”

“Is she listening?” Bucky asks. “She doesn’t look like she is anymore.”

“I don’t like it,” Natasha says.

The unknown woman sits down, her face becoming pale.

“What’s wrong?”

“Come on,” Nat says, leading the rest of the Avengers to the room, being the first to speak, the woman standing at her presence.

“Showing weakness is a sign of it,” Natasha says. “Care to explain why you were sitting?”

The woman looks at her, still a warrior.

“Experiment 346 set to emergency backup self-destruct.”

“You’re going to explode?”

“The backup is intense fever, followed by death.”

“Why are they eliminating you?” Natasha asks.

“The Experiment is in the Avengers Tower. Experiment 346 has failed its mission. The Program has abandoned Experiment 346, leaving the microchip in the skull to eliminate the threat of secrets being released.”

“Didn’t they train you not to crack under interrogation?” Bucky asks.

“Yes, sir.”

“Can the chip be extracted without casualties?” Natasha asks.

“Yes, but only by a child of the Red Room.”

“I would need to pull it out?”

“That is correct.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“The Experiment does not understand.”

“What’s your name?”

“The Experiment does not remember. When the Experiment was recruited, its memories were deleted.”

“Deleted?”

“Yes. The Experiment did not need its memories to fulfill its duties.”

“Why should I help you?”

“The...” She looks at her for a heartbeat, and Natasha catches a glimpse of humanity in those eyes. "The Experiment does not want to die.”

“What do you want? To live?”

“That is unclear.”

“Good enough for me.”

 

~

 

“Nat’s going to be fine,” Cap tells Bucky, who is waiting outside of the operation room.

“I know, but that dame...” Bucky says, running a hand through his hair as he looks at his friend. “She said that she was recruited. Like me.”

“How you were. You’re saved.”

“I know. The problem is, even once that chip is out, the Program will come for her. They made her like that; she’s a weapon to them.”

“When she’s awake, we can ask her what she remembers. What she does may help us with the Program. And until then, she’s got a team to protect her.”

 

~

 

“How are you feeling?” Natasha asks, coming into the room.

It’s been a few days, and—due to the Super Soldier Serum that heals her fast—the woman has been walking and talking for most of the time spent after surgery. Unfortunately, she is still under watchful eyes for more than one reason.

She stands up, standing at attention when Nat walks in.

“Fine, sir.”

“You don’t have to stand, you know. Sit down.”

She does, waiting for orders, sitting up straight, like a brick wall instead of a human being.

“We’re going to start off where we stopped yesterday. Have you remembered anything else?”

She shakes her head.

“The Experiment’s memories of the Program’s locations were erased.”

“That’s fine,” Natasha says. “Let’s try something different today. What do you _want_ to be called?”

“I am Experiment 346.”

“You’re not just an experiment. You are a person.”

“The Experiment is not a person.”

“What is she, then?”

“The Experiment, owned and created by the Program.”

“No one owns you.”

“The Experiment is nothing without its value to its owners.”

“You could own yourself. Be your own commander.”

“What would the Experiment do?”

“Whatever you want to.”

“The Experiment has no personal ambitions.”

“You said that you had no ambitions. No desires, you mean?”

“Correct.”

“So, why would you not want to die?”

Natasha leaves the room soon after, silent.

_Maybe Barnes can help._

 

~

 

Bucky knocks on the hospital door, using his right arm, keeping his left arm hidden from view, even with the long sleeves and gloves. The door is slightly open, so he asks if he can come in.

“Yes.”

He enters, seeing the woman standing in the middle of the room, her hair growing out. Her head was already bald, but the nurses had to shave it again when she had her surgery. There’s a scar, but the hair seems to be growing out enough that it’s fuzzy around it.

“Hi,” he says. “I’m Bucky.”

“Experiment 346.”

“I just wanted to see how you were feeling.”

“Fine, sir.”

“You don’t have to call me that. We’re on the same level.”

“The Experiment must show respect to its betters,” she responds.

“I’m no better than you.”

“You are obviously a soldier. I am an experiment.”

“I was controlled by Hydra, too,” Bucky says, pulling off his glove, showing her his metal arm, the metal glinting in the bright lights. “I was a soldier for them.”

“The Experiment has seen that arm before,” she admits. “A mission. Bulgaria, 1966. Experiment 346’s memory database has been compromised, but the Experiment remembers that assignment.”

“The chip that tried to melt your brain,” Bucky says. “Did it contain the information?”

“The logs. The Experiment remembers more than the Program would wish. Such as the Winter Soldier.”

“The Program is a part of Hydra, and Hydra is the enemy. Hydra tried to kill you.”

“The Experiment is of no value to them anymore,” she says matter of fact.

“So, try to be of value for yourself,” Bucky insists. “You’re not an experiment.”

“The Experiment-”

“You’re not an experiment!” Bucky exclaims, getting angry—but not at her. “You’re not an it. You’re a person!”

“What should the Experiment be called, then?”

“A name! A real name!”

“Like what?”

“Don’t you remember anything before you were recruited?” Bucky asks, still upset. “Your parents?”

“You are upset.”

“I’m just-”

“Would it please you if the Experiment called itself a girl?”

“Yes!” Bucky admits, and then growls and shoves his glove back on, the metal fingers disappearing under the thick cloth. “It’s about what you want.”  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am officially a college student.  
> Have a blessed day! Jesus loves you!


	4. Pizza

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sup? So, if I don't post a chapter until late, or until after midnight, don't sweat.

“How’d it go?” Steve asks his friend, who just stormed into the gym, already knowing the answer.

“Badly,” he answers, going straight for the punching bag next to Cap’s.

“Scale of one to ten.”

“The scale is idiotic,” Bucky grunts, starting to pummel the bag.

“What happened?”

“She calls herself ‘it,’ and when I yelled at her, she said that she’d call herself she if it’s ‘pleasing.’”

“I guess that that’s progress.”

“I’m not her owner!” Bucky exclaims, giving up on the punching bag for the moment, throwing his hands in the air.

“I’m sorry, Buck,” Cap says. “But it’ll take time, just like it took for you.”

“I know.”

“You got farther than Natasha did. You relate to her more. Maybe you could help.”

 

~

 

“She broke an x-ray machine!” Tony exclaims, trying to figure out why Barnes would want him to move the woman to the apartment floor.

“You can’t put her through tests and expect her _not_ to break the machines!’ Bucky yells back.

“We should move her up here,” Steve says, on Bucky’s side in the argument.

“ _What?”_

“It would be safer.”

“She tried to kill you, and me, and she injured Dr. Cho and a nurse.”

“She was mind-controlled,” Bucky says. “I got a second chance.”

“Fine! Why don’t we invite Ant-Man, too?”

“Why him?”

“He popped into my head.”

“Why not that spider kid?”

“Parker won’t leave his aunt.”

 

~

 

Bucky pauses at the door before he knocks, using his flesh hand, his thoughts on how to phrase it.

Of course he knows how it feels in hospital rooms, and the fact that this is in the Avengers Tower doesn’t change how it smells of antiseptic and reeks of that familiar experimentation.

It’s been years, but he still remembers it all, even if it is murky.

Blinking, Bucky refocuses just as the door opens.

“Sir,” she says in greeting.

“Um,” he says, ignoring the fact that she called him sir, if only to not yell again for something that he feels she needs to grow out of. “Stark has plenty of rooms upstairs, so you can sleep up there.”

“The metal man?” She asks, but it somehow sounds like a statement. “Is he the director?”

“Stevie is the captain, but Stark payed for the building.”

“Stevie.”

“Captain America. Anyway, they’re preparing a room for you upstairs.”

With a nod, it’s clear that she is done talking for the moment, so Bucky goes to his own room.

 

~

 

She was taken to the room thirty-seven minutes after Bucky came to inform her of the placement, and she has taken the last fifteen minutes examining the rooms.

A bedroom with a large bed, desk, chair, and full-length mirror, a sitting room with a loveseat and a television the size of a small door, and a bathroom with the usual necessities— toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, pads, and tampons.

She rearranged what needed to be, and eventually sat on the couch to wait.

Her first instinct when someone knocks on the door is to grab a weapon, so she grabs the best concealable one she can find— the toothbrush.

She opens the door—that is what Natasha has instructed her to do when someone knocks—seeing a man with red and yellow skin, a yellow jewel embedded in his forehead.

“Good day, madame,” he says. “I do believe that this is the first time we have met. I am called Vision.”

“Good day,” she says, nodding.

“I was chosen by the ‘short straw’ to inform you that pizza is here.”

“Pizza?”

The doctors in the lab once had a pizza night, and they ate while she was to determine who in the room had the message that she was assigned to discover. If she chose the wrong doctor, she would be placed in the electric room again.

She was eleven, and she chose correctly.

“Pizza is a dish of Italian origin consisting of a flat, round base of dough baked with a topping of tomato sauce and cheese, typically with added meat or vegetables. I believe Mr. Stark said, ‘first come, first serve.’”

“Where is the destination?”

“Follow me.”

She follows Vision— the dude  _ floats _ —to the sitting area, where Bucky, Cap, Natasha, and a man she has come to know as Sam are grabbing plates and slices of pizza.

“Grab some before it’s gone,” Sam says as he passes her, on the way to his room.

“Bucky!” Natasha laughs out, swatting his hand away from her cheese sauce. “Get your own!”

“Sam already double-dipped,” Bucky complains.

“Hey,” Natasha says to the newcomer, ignoring Bucky. “Grab some fast. This stuff gets eaten quicker than Poptarts when Thor’s around.”

She heads to the kitchen island, putting two pieces of pizza on a plate—since that’s the amount the others seem to have started with—and stays standing where she is.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Vision says to the group. “Wanda is waiting for me.”

Vision floats through a wall, disappearing.

“I hate it when he does that,” Bucky mutters.

“You know he’s an android with an Infinity Stone in his head,” Sam says.

“There’s a door two feet away!”

“Don’t fight, boys,” Natasha says, smirking.

Tony walks in—through the door—looking behind him.

“Vision needs to stop going through walls unannounced,” he mumbles.

“Where’s Bruce?” Nat asks, slapping Bucky’s hand away from her food, but eventually lets in.

“In the lab,” Stark responds, grabbing two plates, putting two pieces of pizza on each one. “It was my turn to grab the sustenance.”

“I think that you guys should stop playing, and get some shut eye.”

“We’re at the verge of a scientific breakthrough! And speaking of sleep, Capsicle, Bucky Road, try not to fall asleep before nine tomorrow, since it’ll be movie night.”

Stark leaves with a smirk, all four of the other Avengers that are left in the room rolling their eyes at the nicknames.

“Does anyone know where my hood is?” A man says as he comes in, searching around. “I thought I had it when I left yesterday.”

The man catches sight of the food, immediately grabbing a slice of pizza, taking a large bite.

“Clint?” Nat asks. “You came back for your hood? Why am I not surprised?”

“It’s the warmest thing I own,” he says after he swallows, shrugging.

The man who must be Clint spots the woman who stood when he entered— but slowly sat down when she saw Bucky watching, frowning—and smiles.

“Hi! Nat told me about you. I know a little girl who would love you. A girl as strong as Cap or Bucky!”

“The Experi-” She stops, glancing at Bucky, remembering his instructions. “That’s true.”

“I’m Clint,” Clint says, holding out a hand, but retracts it when she eyes it warily. “What’s your name?”

“I do not remember my birth name.”

“Really? Maybe if you went through those cards with names on them, it might jog your memory.”

“I might try that.”

“I bet they have lists online.”

“Is there a computer nearby that I would have clearance to use?” She asks Natasha.

 

~

 

“I assume you know how to use one,” Tony says as he steps away from the laptop that is set up on her desk, having typed in the code.

She answers by typing on the laptop, bringing up a search engine, finding a website within seconds.

“Good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any ideas?  
> Have a blessed night!


	5. This Is What I Am

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost spaced this chapter! Today was the first day of college for me, and my Theatre class is fun. :)

She’s been talking to JARVIS more than she has to anyone else since she moved upstairs. She thinks of him as an equal, unlike how she views the others, since JARVIS was made by man—how she thinks of herself.  
“Yes,” he responds.  
“Where can I go to break something?”  
“There is a gym on the eleventh floor.”  
“Good.”  
She has been working out in her room—and it helps—but she feels like she needs to break something.  
The gym takes up a whole floor, filled with treadmills, bicycles, speed bags, weights, and punching bags. She heads to the latter, not bothering with boxing gloves, immediately starting to hit it, working out a rhythm.  
She’s so angry, her memories blocked by each other, hitting the boundary Hydra has put up to keep her compliant, a soldier, a plaything. Her fists pound faster, the bag leaping.  
And now she has no worth to her former owners, kept in a tower with a bunch of superheroes who have done good, not what she has.  
The punching bag breaks, loose sand exploding and crashing onto the floor, landing on her feet as she stares at the rip. The sound of footsteps alert her to someone approaching, and she quickly climbs the bag’s rope to prop herself up on the bar that holds it to the ceiling, sitting on the bar overhead as the man with the metal arm—Bucky—comes in, seeing the bag and its sand. She sees him pause, but then simply grabs the bag, shoves it to the side, and hangs another, starting to pummel the new one.  
She watches as the Winter Soldier works out a rhythm, similar to her eventful exercise. She listens, watching the far wall as he continues to fight, breaking bags every now and then until dawn, when his mental exhaustion brings him to leave the room—after he sweeps the floor.  
She follows soon after, going back to her own chambers.  
After a shower, the woman heads for the kitchen, intending on grabbing an apple before anyone else wants breakfast, intending on keeping to herself, but she ends up walking right into Bucky, who holds a granola bar.  
“Apologies” she says immediately.  
“Sorry, it wasn’t your fault. I wasn’t paying attention.”  
She ducks past him, grabbing an apple, intending on going back to her room, but Bucky seems to have something to say.  
“I, uh, have to apologize.”  
“I believe that you just did.”  
“Not for that. For yelling the other day. I shouldn’t have, but I did.”  
“I am not one to shy away from loud voices.”  
“You don’t deserve to be yelled at.”  
“I was trained to be a soldier.”  
"You don't have to be a soldier."  
"This is what I am, James," she says. "Permission to be dismissed?"  
Bucky nods, his jaw clenched as he watches her leave, surprised by her calling him James, and how she asked if she could be dismissed. She reminds himself of how he was just a few years ago, obeying orders from corrupt people. Bucky still has problems with keeping his head on straight, sleeping, his memories confusing him. What's right, and what's real. And now he wants her to get better, to think for herself.  
As Stevie said, maybe he can help.

~

Movie night.  
Tonight.  
A dreaded thought in Bucky’s mind as he chews on his granola bar, checking for poison without thinking.  
Movie night is filled with team-bonding, laughter, drinks, popcorn, and what bothers him.  
Socializing with force.  
The man is certainly not the most antisocial person in the world—he used to take out dames all the time, and with his eyes and charm, it didn’t take much for the women to accept his invitations to dance—but that was before. Bucky used to have charm, worry-free eyes—except for when Stevie was being a punk—an easy smile, and a will to get around.  
Now he has PTSD, puppy-dog eyes that are usually surrounded by purple smudges from lack of sleep, a frown, and a murder strut.  
Bucky was having a good day yesterday, up until it was time for bed. That’s when his blechness came and hit him in the stomach, his head reeling. There was no pain, but his brain was on hyper-drive, swimming in thoughts that compete with what should be there.  
Bucky bumped into her—he really wants to call her something else, a real name that can be pinned to the face that is frozen in time—and his thoughts were on her, whether or not she was okay, and if she would forgive him for yelling at her. Bucky apologized, and then nodded when she asked to be dismissed.  
Who does that? The man nodded. Why would he just nod at something that makes him want to yell again?  
With a sigh, he realizes that his responses to aggravating things are a lot harder to deal with than he thought. Of course, that just makes him angrier, and he feels like Dr. Banner, and-  
Time to go back to the gym.

~

She looks out the window—the sky is rather blue today, but it is often blue, but she’s so used to the cold, dark chambers, and the sky was rarely seen by the eyes that mirror the color now—and her thoughts are actually drifting. She’s used to being unconscious, or maybe in training, but this? This mindless thinking is actually quite nice.  
A cloud opens up and pours out a metal beast—covered in what looks like blinking lights—flying slowly to the ground, the lights blinking fast.  
And then, reaching the ground, shards of light and glass shoot out.  
People scream, and her eyes dart to the door, only for her to turn back to the window, expecting to see nothing but the bleeding people.  
Is that a glass beast?  
The girl is out the door before she draws another breath.

~

“Cap, we’ve got a problem,” Tony says as he flies to the site.  
“What kind of problem?”  
“A… She’s running towards it, and she’s almost there...”  
“She?”  
“Uh, the woman. The- Ugh! You know!”  
Stark sees her jump and land on the beast, glass shards digging into her skin.  
It revolts, rolling over just as she springs off, but jumps right back on its back as it makes a sound of protest, glass pieces breaking, flying off and piercing her flesh. She doesn’t bleed very much, and her reflexes are fast enough that when the monster tries to stab her with a large shard, she lets it go into a tree, grabs it, and then pierces the eye of the metal monster with its own glass.  
It howls—a grating noise—and flails as she slides off its back, takes hold of the closest weapon—which just happens to be a hot dog vendor’s umbrella stick—snaps it in half, and shoves it in its neck until it stops flailing, the other end now digging into the dirt.  
A moment later, the Avengers have gathered around, pushing past the civilians that are already taking pictures and videos of the new warrior.  
“What’s your name?” One woman shouts.  
“I do not remember,” she answers.  
“We need to get home,” Bucky says to her, as the other Avengers try to keep everyone from getting too close to her and the monster.  
“How did you do that?”  
“What do we call you?”  
“Where do you come from?”  
“Germany.”  
“Don’t answer those,” Bucky tells her, pushing his way out of the crowd, leading her back to the Tower.  
A news van pulls up—in the middle of a grassy part of the park—and a man and a woman jump out, the woman holding a camera, shoving it in her face.  
“We’re here at Central Park with a woman who just slayed a metal monster,” the man says into a microphone. “How did you do it?”  
Following Bucky and his instructions, she stays silent, heading towards the Tower, the crowd following.  
“How did you do that?” The man asks, shoving his microphone in her face, staying closer than anyone else would like. “What is your name?”  
“Hey,” Bucky growls out, shoving him off. “Leave her alone.”  
“What’s your name?” The reporter yells at her, struggling to get past Bucky.  
“Put the camera away,” Bucky orders, pushing the microphone towards the man. “Go home.”  
“Where do you come from?”  
“Run to the Tower,” Bucky says to her, and she immediately obeys, racing back to where she knows is safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any ideas, thoughts, opinions, or requests that you'd want to make known?  
> Have a blessed day!


	6. Learning Social Conventions

The Avengers got back to the Tower shortly, Natasha, Bucky, and Steve heading for the woman’s room to find out if she’s okay.  
She opens the door almost as soon as Cap knocks, a bloody rag in her hand.  
“Are you okay?” Bucky asks, staring at the rag that is literally dripping all over the carpeted floor.  
“The Exp-” She says, and then corrects herself. “I rolled over onto some glass, and it’s stuck in my shoulder.”  
“I’ve got it,” Nat says, asking the woman to turn so she can see. “Ooh, that’s all from that shard?”  
“I have already removed six pieces,” she responds with little emotion.  
“Bucky, get me some bandages and the scissors. Cap, I need a needle, the stitching thread, tweezers, and the antiseptic.”  
Natasha leads her to the bathroom, the sink covered in drying blood, the floor dotted with it.  
“Did you try to dig it out with your fingers?”  
“Yes,” she answers. “It kept on scabbing over.”  
Sighing, Natasha turns just as Bucky and Cap return.  
“Thanks. I’m going to have to take off her shirt to see it, so get out of here.”  
The men nod, closing the door as Natasha turns back to see the woman waiting patiently for her to assist her in the bandaging process.

~

It’s odd how she didn’t move throughout the whole thing unless it was to do something important. The woman let Natasha cut off her shirt, leaving her in her bra, and dig out the glass without even a wince. She barely blinked, kept on breathing with no trouble, and had no difficulty in keeping silent.  
“If you want to take a shower, you can wash the dried blood off,” Nat says. “Your wounds scabbed over before I had to stitch anything, so just be careful.”  
“Thank you,” she says, surprising Nat.  
“You’re welcome.”  
Natasha turns to go, closing the door behind her.  
In the shower, the bloody woman rinses off, feeling how her head is still covered in fuzz—her last mission had been an undercover one, posing as a patient—her skin covered in little scabs.  
Her healing is over double a normal person’s, so her scabs are not of concern. The wounds will be healed by tomorrow, except for the biggest, which will take a few days max.  
Her biggest concern is her name.  
She always was a complicated, difficult soldier. When she was younger, the other children—they were still alive at first, until the serums started to destroy them—would beg her not to anger the wardens, even going so far as to sit on her as she lashed out at them, the creaky bed with no mattress digging in her back as she fought, scratching to get free. She hated being controlled, determined to break her way to the open streets again.  
Funny how she was the one to live.  
The chip—installed when she was sixteen, when she refused to take a mission that involved a nearby orphanage—took away that ability to think for herself during missions. And when she was not on missions, she was training, or asleep.  
Frozen. Imprisoned.  
Now that she is not supposed to call herself Experiment 346, what does she call herself? The reporter had asked what her name was, so why should she stay calling herself she? Isn’t there something more than this? A thought itches at the back of her mind, but it’s tiny, fuzzy, like a piece of lint in a jacket pocket.  
Why grab it? Who knows?  
She makes up her mind—ha, that’s funny, she thinks—to read that list of names again. It looked promising. She thought that maybe she had found it when she saw the first name, until she saw the next, and the next. They all seemed to jump out at her, like her name is there, but the single name that is correct is hiding in the confusion.

~

When she comes out of the bathroom, she heads straight for the closet, pulling out fresh clothes from the rack and the dresser drawers, dressing quickly. She hangs the towel on the shower rack, spotting the red streaks on the towel, not to mention the ones staining the carpet throughout her apartment.  
“Jarvis, is there bleach nearby?”  
“The laundry room is a few floors away, and it has bleach, washing and drying machines, detergent, and laundry booster. You can wash your clothes at any time.”  
“Thank you.”  
She’s been reading up on social conventions, studying how to act, how to react, and how to follow orders.  
Saying thank you, you’re welcome, please, and bless you, are very important, and it seems that the idea of asking to be excused or dismissed is usually not said in a typical household. At least unless it’s to a parent or other guardian.  
“You’re very welcome,” Jarvis answers.  
Before she leaves, she washes the blood out—and it comes out without bleach, but she’ll do laundry later, and she’ll have to scrub the carpets when she can—and hangs the towel up, opening her bedroom door five minutes later to see Bucky sitting on the desk chair that she left in the sitting room.  
“James,” she says.  
His mouth quirks up at that, but he doesn’t comment on the name.  
She remembers Bucky’s file, noting that the scientists downloaded it when it was installed, as if her missions would involve him someday, and she supposes that maybe it could be of some use. Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, now one-hundred years old, born in Brooklyn, best friend of Captain Steve Rogers. Growing up with Rogers, the two fought together, until he went to war, and the rest is a puddle of information that mixes with another puddle.  
It’s fascinating, the woman able to stand in front of the Winter Soldier calmly, both of them free.  
“Are you okay?”  
“Fine,” she answers. “I am already healing satisfactorily.”  
“I, uh, was worried when we saw how much blood was on the counter and-”  
“Thank you for your concern,” she says, forcing herself to smile.  
It’s odd, how people smile. She used to only smile for missions, and that was easier. This, with actual, human emotion, is harder. It almost feels like a vulnerability.  
Learning social conventions is hard, but Bucky smiles, too, so it must be accepted.  
“You’re welcome. You destroyed that metal boar before I even got there.”  
“I saw it land. A cloud held it.”  
“A cloud was holding it?”  
She nods, working on her non-verbal communication.  
“I’ll tell Cap,” he says. “Unless you want to.”  
“You can do it, James.”  
Bucky smiles a little again, and then asks if she’s okay again.  
“I am okay,” she says. “Thank you.”  
“You’re welcome,” he says, and then shakes his head, as if to clear it. “We’re going to watch a picture in a few hours. It’s Stevie’s turn to pick, so...”  
“That sounds enjoyable,” she says. “What time?”  
“Eight. In the living room.”  
“I will be there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this was over an hour late!  
> Have a blessed day!


	7. Good Night, Doll

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that it's late, but I did it on purpose. In any case, this is over my goal on how long each chapter should be, so hopefully that makes up for it.  
> Also, there's a lot of German, so I put the translations in the fic, but they are very rough, by Google Translate, and I had some difficulties making the sentences be less weird. Some of it says sacrifice instead of victim if you check, and I just don't want to figure out another way to say it at this moment in time.  
> Trigger warning! This mentions torture, has a death, guns, flogging, experimentation, and other stuff. If you have trouble with a past from almost drowning, it does mention holding your breath, as in, almost drowning, so beware. (I say this because of love.)

The movie Steve picked was something that Barnes did not expect. What is a marshmallow-looking man doing with a bunch of children? It looks almost like the man is a robot—his eyes blink, and they’re connected by a black line—but he’s so cushy-looking…  
So far, Big Hero 6 looks capable of holding his attention for a few hours.  
That is, until she walks in, her steps long and filled with a mission. Her eyes scan the room as she stands in the space between the living room and kitchen.  
“Sit down wherever,” Stark says.  
“Except for the unoccupied seat with popcorn on it,” Clint adds. “That’s Scott’s.”  
“Scott,” she says, asking without letting it sound like a question.  
“Scott Lang. The guy beat Sam’s butt once. It was hilarious to watch on tape.”  
“Sam lost in a fight with this Scott? Shall I engage?”  
“No, he’s fine,” Nat says casually. “Scott’s a good guy.”  
“Plus, who here hasn’t attacked someone in this room? Natasha hacked at my throat yesterday for trying to eat her cupcake, Sam tried to beat Cap at jogging again, and Tony once tried to get Banner to Hulk Out by zapping him. You tried to kill Cap recently.”  
“Understood,” she says, and walks over to where Barnes is in the corner, standing in front of the empty seat beside him.  
“Permission to sit?”  
“Of course,” he says, a little gruff, ticked that she asked for permission, even though it’s polite to ask.  
She nods, sitting, looking straight at the screen as she waits for the movie to start. Her posture is almost rigid, her back straight even as it is pressed into the chair, alert at a time that is meant to be for enjoyment, the threat of an enemy always on her mind.  
Unfortunately, Bucky is in a similar position—both physically and mentally.  
Less than ten seconds later, with Stark and Steve bickering over what hurts worse—being tortured by Nazis or being injected with the super soldier serum, which is pretty specific—the woman sitting next to Bucky knowing which hurts worse, since she has had both done to her, a man springs up from the polished floor, wearing a red and dull-gray silver suit.  
The woman has him pinned to the floor before he can squeak in protest.  
“No, that’s Lang!” Cap yells.  
“Don’t kill him!”  
“Stand down, soldier.”  
She lets him go, standing at attention as he coughs.  
“Ow,” he hacks out. “My fault. I should’ve known better than to sneak up on anyone in the Tower.”  
“Yes, you should’ve,” Natasha says calmly.  
“I’m Scott,” he says, extending a hand, but then changes his mind and picks up his shaken bottle of soda.  
“Sir,” she says, ignoring the way her still-healing injuries are feeling.  
“I’m not ‘Sir,’” he says, laughing, standing up, his face still red from almost being choked with a knee. “You took down that shiny pig today! My little girl saw it, and she screamed. She’s so cute. She loved it. That was so cool!”  
She turns to Natasha for help, trying to figure out what “cool” means. She doubts it was cold.  
Great job, Natasha mouths.  
She nods at Scott, thankful, not sure how to react.  
Is this how movie nights go? Always with another Avenger appearing? The chip’s information is slowly leaving, so she has to rely on her training and own memory to keep track of all of the members.  
She had realized that the chip was no longer feeding her information when she was struggling to access her files. The chip should have given her them within seconds, and with her free will, she would be able to open them, but with the chip gone, it was useless. She had to use an actual computer to even look up names on the internet.  
“Movie starting in three, two, one,” Stark says, and Lang plops into his seat as soon as he grabs his popcorn container off it, smiling when Clint gives him a look.  
The man almost sat on him, and that would end up with him moving closer to Nat, and Natasha would probably gut him for sitting on her, and he wants to keep his organs inside.  
But then the movie starts, and all thoughts of gutting or being flayed alive flee as a small boy with the fluffiest hair Bucky has ever seen uses his robot to decapitate another.  
The movie continues, most everyone eating their favorite snacks.  
The woman sat down, sitting up straight, filing away everyone’s food and drink preferences.  
Natasha: Vodka—Russian—and Oreos.  
Clint: “Nutter Butters.”  
Sam: Pretzels dipped in Nutella.  
Steve: Apple slices with cream cheese, and a container of popcorn.  
Scott Lang: Popcorn with extra butter and salt, Raisinettes, and his orange soda—apparently, he didn’t want vodka, root beer, grape Nehi, Sprite, Ginger Ale, or any of the other alcoholic drinks in the room.  
Wanda: Chex Mix.  
Vision: Whatever Wanda doesn’t want from her bag of chosen food.  
Dr. Banner: Trail Mix.  
Stark: Dried blueberries, and peanuts.  
Bucky: Nothing.  
Her thoughts wander from the movie, something she has been doing more lately, since she has the choice, finding them in a rather dark place.  
What’s her favorite snack? Does she like fast food—Stark mentioned that he loves hamburgers, Banner muttering that his heart condition should get a break—or does she like healthy options, like apple slices, or even blueberries and strawberries mixed together to make a fruit salad? Maybe something minty, or tart, or plain sugar.  
All she knows about her taste so far is that she likes it plain, but can eat what she has been fed.  
The saddest part to her is that she doesn’t remember what happened during her childhood, before the war.  
An explosion shakes the air, and she bolts up, but sits back down when she realizes that it was just on the screen. She stays rigid, Bucky notices, staring at the screen with a look that can only be described as blank.  
Bucky finds himself ignoring the movie more than he has been—it’s cute, but the only thing he wants to do involving the movie is go help Tadashi, punch Krei, and pet that chubby cat, and what he does want to do that doesn’t involve the movie is ignore the people around him that he can’t help, and focus on the one person he can.  
She reminds him too much of himself to be healthy.  
She has barely blinked since she retook her seat.  
That is, until the boy—Hiro—starts to tell the robot—marshmallow man—to destroy someone.  
After a moment or two, she stands up, and walks briskly out of the room.

~

“Baymax, destroy him!” The little boy commands, and she watches Baymax try to murder the man whose identity had been revealed moments before. “Destroy him!”  
The voice of Hiro morphs into one of Dr. Kühn, telling a child to murder a man who is shivering in the muck that goes up to his ankles in the cell.  
“Töte ihn,” the doctor repeated.  
‘Kill him.’  
“Ich kann nicht!” She cried.  
‘I can’t!’  
“Töte ihn!”  
‘Kill him!’  
“I can’t!” She sobbed, and his eyes lit up with madness.  
Not anger. Insanity.  
“Nein Englisch! Töte ihn!”  
‘No English! Kill him!’  
“Ich will nach Hause gehen!”  
‘I want to go home!’  
She screamed those words, and with them, her head yelled at her for it, her nose starting to bleed as she takes in the damage to her body.  
The injections started a week ago, the kidnapping only three weeks before. She was kept in a cage for two days at a time, only coming out to be examined by doctors in lab coats. She was kept in the cage, the others around her disappearing every once in a while, sometimes coming back within a few days, sometimes disappearing forever.  
She was fed every three days, one hunk of stale bread and a slab of what smelled like horse meat, and she was watered every other day. The only way out of the cage was with the giant locks and keys, the latter being carried by the head doctor of the time—Dr. Kühn —and her only hope of getting those were destroyed when she ended up alerting him to her stealing.  
The wait was over. She was taken to be experimented on next.  
Injections, flash floods to test her breath-holding, her limbs feeling like they were glued to the table when she was given a drug that made her see stars. The lights that were shined into her eyes as they were turned into a different color than before, but that wore off by the time she got back to her cell.  
Electric currents pulsing through her flesh, flogging, training.  
The training was almost as bad as the experiments.  
Then again, she was called Experiment 346, so maybe it would be easier to call them tests.  
The tests were usually injections, sometimes leaving her frozen as her muscles were in shock, sometimes leaving her to scream. Of course, the training involved using those muscles to do things that were wrong.  
Murder, steal, cheat, torture, and memorize every little line of a movie. The movies changed every time, and it always hurt, since her fear almost always made her trip up and say the line wrong. An eight-year-old shouldn't be able to recite Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs after watching it once. So, why did she? Finally, she memorized it, but the doctor didn't seem happy for her. Dr. Kühn was happy, giddy, for the test.  
She kept on testing, being forced to obey commands, until she was forced to murder.  
"Experiment 346 wird wie bestellt tun!”  
‘Experiment 346 will do as ordered!’  
“Der Mann ist unschuldig!”  
‘The man is innocent!’  
And then she was pinned against the wall by her throat, the gun falling into the doctor's free hand as he crushed her throat.  
“Unschuld ist für die Schwachen.”  
‘Innocence is for the weak.’  
And then Kühn dragged her to the man, leaving her inches from his bleeding face as she coughed out blood. And then, without warning, he shot him in the head as she screamed.  
In the Avengers Tower, when she gets up, no one moves, watching her go. It only lasts about two seconds before Bucky gets up, along with the rest of the team members.  
The image in her mind morphs into another, one that happened two days after she was taken to be tested on.  
“Experiment 346 contained,” a guard said to Kühn.  
“Sedate it,” he commanded.  
“I am not an it!” She had screeched, pounding her small fists on the bulletproof glass that separated her from the doctor. “My name is Gretchen, my birthday is June eighth, and I am a human! Let me go, please!”  
The doctor sneered at her, and then turned and walked away as a dart pierced her neck.

~

Bucky finds her slipping into her room, the rest of the Avengers waiting around the corner—eavesdropping, but held back by Natasha and Steve, who already knew that Bucky was planning on coaching her through what he has already gone through.  
Bucky is still recovering, but he’s past where she is. Of course, he knows that once he came back to the surface, his PTSD kicked in, and that is its own battle.  
“Are you okay?” The tired, war-worn solider asks the other.  
She turns, suddenly at attention.  
“Experiment 346 ist bereit zu gehorchen.”  
‘Experiment 346 is ready to obey.’  
“You’re not at the program.”  
“Experiment 346 ist bereit zu gehorchen,” she repeats.  
“Doll, you’re not at the Program. You’re at Avengers Tower.”  
“’Avengers.’ Was ist das gewünschte Opfer?”  
‘’Avengers.’ What is the desired victim?’  
“Du hast kein Opfer.”  
‘You have no victim.’  
When she doesn’t understand, he sighs.  
“Du bist nicht verlobt,” he tells her. “You’re off duty.”  
‘You are not engaged.’  
“Wo ist die Cryosleep Kammer?”  
“Where is the cryosleep chamber?” She asks.  
“Irh Bett ist da drin,” he says, gesturing to her room. “Du kannst schlafen, aber du must hier nicht zu Cryo gehen.”  
‘Your bed is in there. You can sleep, but you do not have to go into Cryo here.’  
“You’re safe,” he adds in English.  
“Ist das Experiment entlassen?”  
‘Is the Experiment dismissed?’  
A sick feeling washing over him, Bucky nods, and she turns and goes into her room, closing the door behind her.  
“Good night, Doll.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a blessed day!


	8. Out Cold

Her eyes open, absorbing the light as her lungs gulp in air, the cold melting off of her skin as she stands up, ready for the doctors to turn on the lights that should be blinding her, prepared for the painful shots that inject poison into her body.  
But all that comes is cold, and a warm voice that reminds her of a robot.  
“Mr. Stark and the other Avengers are assembling,” Jarvis says.  
“Why is it this temperature?”  
“It is sixteen below and dropping. My sensors show that there is an intruder.”  
There is a pause, and then Jarvis speaks again.  
“Mr. Stark requests your presence in the meeting room.”  
“Thank you, Jarvis,” she says, grabbing a knife that she snagged, shoving it in her long-sleeved sweatshirt that Sam gave her.  
Mr. Stark said that Pepper was going to be back in three days, and then she’d force her to get some more clothes. She’s content with what she has, which is only a few shirts, some underclothes, some shorts, pants, and now socks. She prefers to go barefoot, since it gives her a better grip on the floor, but that is restricted until her feet are healed, according to Natasha.  
Gretchen heads for the meeting room, finding the door open, the Avengers inside, Cap and Tony in a quarrel.  
“What's the mission?”  
“There's some weird dude with a freeze gun on the run from security. Half of our guards are frozen, and the rest of the people in here have frostbite, or are getting there.”  
“What floor?”  
“Fifth.”  
“I thought you said you fixed the security problem,” Cap says to Stark.  
“Yeah, but I forgot that I broke that window and I haven't replaced it with the bulletproof stuff yet.”  
“Didn't that happen two weeks ago?”  
“I was busy! Pepper and I were on vacation, and it ended up with me battling another guy with metal arms.”  
While they were talking, Gretchen--it still sounds weird to her, that name--Bucky, and Natasha went towards the stairs, running to the fifth floor as they bickered.  
“You just got out of a fight with a giant glass beast less than twenty-four hours ago,” Bucky says. “I can handle this.”  
“I know this man,” Gretchen snaps back. “Unless this is another man with freezing capabilities, he is named William Nightingale. The Program called him Captain Freeze. The Experiment was ordered to help him escape a S.H.I.E.L.D. base twenty years ago.”  
“And he's back?”  
“The Program controls him. It must have sent him to kill me,” she says, switching back to human mode.  
The Experiment is beginning to peek through less, but it's still there. The programming and training and routine are still there, and it's hard to shake old habits.  
'My name is Gretchen. I was born on June eighth. I am not a possession. My name is Gretchen,I was born on June eighth...'  
She repeats it in her mind, even as she finds her way down the staircases to meet Captain Freeze, as Bucky and Natasha ask her questions, as she answers.  
“Does he have actual powers, or does he have a weapon?” Bucky finally asks, making Gretchen realize that the two Avengers have no idea what they are in for.  
“Wait,” she says, stopping, turning around to look at them. “The villain is capable of destroying your bodies. Freeze carries no weapon; he is one. The ice erupts from his fingertips, the wind from his breath, the harsh cold from his skin. The man is pure ice that will not melt in any heat that I have tried. The only way to defeat him is to trap him.”  
“In what?”  
“The container I awoke in. Is it still operational?”  
“Of course,” Natasha responds with, pulling out her phone to message Stark.  
“I will draw him there.”  
“Captain Cold-” Bucky starts, but she corrects him.  
“Freeze.”  
“The guy wants to kill you,” he says firmly.  
“Yes.”  
“Why let him get close to you?”  
“If I do not draw him close, he will annihilate everyone and everything in his path. James, I have to do this. And all I need from you is to stay out of the way. I've killed too many. I need to keep a life.”  
“Stark says it's ready,” Nat interrupts, talking about the Hulk container.  
“Experiment 346!” A man's voice bellows, going past the walls and to her ears.  
Without another word, Gretchen turns and runs to the man.  
Bucky follows, ready to defend the woman. The sight that greets him stops him.  
The man is held by his throat, high in the air, blue eyes wide.  
“My name is Gretchen,” his enemy says in an even tone, angry. “Good. Not bad.”  
“Please, let me go!” Freeze begs, strained. “Please! I was obeying orders!”  
Bucky watches as the anger flees from her eyes, her face falling as she lets him go.  
“Captain Freeze, I would suggest you flee. Hydra will come after you.”  
The villain nods, meek.  
Gretchen turns, and Bucky opens his mouth just as the man smiles and raises his hands.  
“Look out!”  
Bucky races towards her just as she takes a nearby thin railing, tears it from the wall, and shoves it next to Nightingale's head, and then twists the metal over his neck and into the wall.  
Bucky grabs absolutely nothing and just punches the man straight in the jaw, knocking him out.  
“Out cold, huh, Gretchen?” Bucky remarks.  
Gretchen doesn't even get the joke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this chapter is late. I should probably check for errors tomorrow, but I'm tired.  
> I'm an eighteen-year-old! :O  
> Also, anyone notice the DC reference?  
> Have a blessed day!


	9. That's Not Evil

“Out cold, huh, Gretchen?" Bucky remarks.  
She doesn't even get the joke.  
She does, however, notice how he said her name.  
"You said your name was Gretchen," he says, as if he knows what she is thinking. "I heard you tell him. It's nice. Very German."  
She nods, and stares at the slightly blue man that is caught between a wall and a metal pole.  
Her fingers feel like they're frozen solid now, no longer tingling, and her feet are worse, thanks to Captain Freeze. She can see her warm breath in the icy air, her fingers, toes, and nose blue.  
"You'd better get some warmer clothes on," Bucky says, gesturing to her shorts and long-sleeved shirt.  
“You're wearing gloves," she notes, flexing her fingers. "I didn't have the time."  
"Had them on before," he says, shrugging his right shoulder, the left one stiff.  
She glares at the dark smudges under his eyes, the reddened white in them. She regards the lack of rest in his eyes—the most expressive thing at this moment—but doesn't comment.  
Instead, she changes the subject.  
“My memories are coming back.”  
“I figured.”  
“I have not said my name before today for years.”  
“We know almost nothing about you. I’m glad you know your name, and not only for our benefit. I didn’t like calling you ‘her’ all the time.”  
“You wanted me to call myself she.”  
“That’s not the point. The point is, I know that knowing your own name is a big step.”  
“You didn’t like calling me ‘her’ all the time. Is that why you called me Doll?”  
“Uh, yeah. Partially. It’s like a nickname.”  
“Like the Experiment?”  
“No. A nickname is…”  
“A term of endearment.”  
“It can be.”  
“Yours is Bucky?”  
“I am… My name is James Buchanan Barnes, but I kept the nickname Bucky in the hopes of avoiding a worse one. Stevie calls me Buck, and I call Steve Stevie or Steve. I actually… Uh, you’re the only one who calls me James now.”  
“Is that permissible?”  
“Yeah. Yeah, it is.”  
For once, Bucky’s shoulders are relaxed. Not rigid, or tense, or exhausted. For once, his smile is warm.  
“Mind if I keep on callin’ you Doll?”  
“That is permissible,” she says, and Bucky’s smile grows.  
The moment is broken by Natasha, who returns with the rest of the Avengers in the building.  
And then the arresting of a criminal begins.

~

Bucky and Gretchen head down the hallway, Clint passing by with a sleeping bag.  
“Why do you have a sleeping bag?”  
“Some prankster stole my bed.”  
“Why?”  
Clint just mumbles under his breath.  
“Where will he sleep?” Gretchen asks Bucky.  
“Stark probably took it, so a guest room is a dream. My guess would be the couch, but crashing on it would end up with him being teased by Stark, since they’re on the verge of a prank war.”  
“A war?”  
“The non-bloody kind, if Nat has anything to say about it. So, since Nat would murder Stark if he pranked her to get Clint, Clint will sleep in Nat’s room.”  
“I would think that the Black Widow would be fine with blood,” Gretchen says as she stops at her door.  
“Not when it comes to pranks when she’s not in the mood. Clint broke his arm once, and then he couldn’t help when some robots held hostages in an appliance store. It’s a rule now.”  
“What is a common prank?”  
“I’ll show you another time. Clint likes sleeping on the couch, and the whipped cream is hidden behind some barbecue sauce. Or better yet, Stevie’s and my quarters still connect, and we leave the in-between door unlocked in case a key is lost. And he has a sensitive nose.”  
“What does that have to do with the prank?”  
“A feather can do much for my humor. I’ll show you tomorrow, Doll. I promise. Better get some rest.”  
"Please get some of your own. Good night."  
"Good night."  
Gretchen turns and walks a few paces, but then turns back around.  
"James?"  
"Yeah?"  
"Thank you."  
"You don't have to thank me for this."  
"I appreciate it all. Even without a name, you taught me how to start seeing myself as human.”

~

Gretchen forced herself to sleep, but she only lasted three hours before she woke up again. Of course, now it’s eleven, since her previous night was filled with low temperatures and former alliances.  
She finds Bucky in the living room, with a remote in one hand, a chocolate bar in the other.  
"Morning, Doll," Bucky pipes up, offering a smile.  
"What is it you're watching?" Gretchen asks, cocking her head as she peers at the screen.  
"I was flipping through the channels. For a Tuesday morning, it sure has a lot on."  
"May I join you?"  
"Sure," he answers, smiling.  
Gretchen sits down, and Bucky immediately tears off a chunk of chocolate for her.  
"Want a piece?"  
"What is it?" She asks.  
"Chocolate. It's richer than before, but that means it's sweeter."  
"What does it taste like?"  
"Cocoa, sugar, and milk."  
"I'll try it. Thank you."  
Bucky grins as she takes it, smelling the treat, and then she takes a bite, letting it stay in her mouth for a moment.  
Her eyes grow wide, and she smiles a bit.  
"This is very good."  
"I had to sneak out and buy some. It doesn't last long in the Tower."  
"Because everyone likes it?"  
"If it's sweet, it usually doesn't last long. Cupcakes, bars, cookies, chocolate, muffins, pie. I had a cookie last week, and it was almost eaten by Stark."  
"Does he wish to die?"  
"No, he thought it was Dr. Banner’s."  
"I thought he was foolish for a moment. Stark does not have a military background."  
"There are two trained assassins in this building, plus you, but two that he has spent time with, and he is not dumb enough to steal food from either of them."  
A few minutes of talking and flipping through channels later, Gretchen’s eyes land on the adorable hooligans that race across the screen.  
“What is that?" She asks.  
"A minion,” Bucky answers.  
"Why does it look like a large pill with eyes?"  
"That one's Bob, but this is two-thirds into the movie, so it wouldn't make sense if you haven't watched it before. The minions want to work for the evilest boss in the world, and they look for the boss in Orlando, and then they end up in England."  
"Do they finish their mission?"  
"They find a boss. If I was the boss, I'd train them to punch Nazis."  
"That's not evil."  
"They're misunderstood."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that I haven't updated since September twelfth, but... I didn't even not do it because of being high on Wisdom Teeth pain meds. I didn't want to do it.  
> So, here's this chapter, and I will probably update again on Monday.  
> Have a blessed day!


	10. Cue Lightsaber-Wielding Aunt May

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter to (hopefully) make up for the lack of updating last week!  
> (The lightsaber is Peter's cosplaying lightsaber, since he's a geek, and I read a fic that mentioned him dressing up as a stormtrooper. http://archiveofourown.org/works/11592432/chapters/26054868 chapter two. You only have to read each chapter as its own story, but they're all pretty funny, except for the last one, which is painful, so beware, and don't read it unless you want to or whatever. Some people might read it just because it's there.)  
> Okay, so update on this note: For the purposes of this fic, the Spider-Man in question is Tom Holland, but the Aunt May is not from Captain America: Civil War, or Spider-Man Homecoming. The Aunt May is the fabulous Sally Field, and just imagine the late Uncle Ben played by Martin Sheen, as they were both playing their roles in the The Amazing Spider-Man movies. Okay? Thanks. (I like the others, but these were my favorite uncle and aunt. :) )

Bucky flips through the channels, going through them with only a few seconds in between.  
“Wait,” Gretchen says when a picture of her flashes across the screen.  
Bucky pretends to have not heard her.  
“Go back.”  
“Okay,” he says, but only goes back one.  
“More. I saw a picture of myself.”  
“Gretchen, it’s just the media.”  
“James, I want to see it.”  
“They’re twisting what happened.”  
“Please.”  
Her tone of voice is steady, but her eyes plead.  
“I’ve been there,” Bucky says. “The media is corrupt.”  
“I need to know.”  
Bucky reluctantly goes back to the correct channel, where a newswoman is discussing her acts.  
“…Now known as Madame Soldat only said that she does not remember her name, and that she is from Germany. Reports say that she slayed the beast, and then escaped after the Avengers arrive. Witnesses say that she might be running from the team, perhaps because she is not a U.S. citizen. Many fear that she sent the monster. Madame Soldat is nowhere to be found, but officials are still searching. If anyone has any information about the woman known as Madame Soldat, NYPD requests that you reveal it to the police as soon as possible. Police also say that if you see the suspect, please do not engage, as she is armed and dangerous. She-“  
Gretchen quickly and calmly leaves the room.

~

Bucky finds her twenty minutes later staring at a laptop screen in her living room.  
“Are you all right?”  
“Soldat.”  
“Du bist- Gretchen, du bist nicht nur ein Soldat,” Bucky responds in German.  
You’re not just a soldier.  
“Madame Soldat. Madame Soldier. The Experiment. Experiment 346. And now I am Madame Soldat.”  
“Your name is Gretchen.”  
“If you didn’t know who I was, what I was, and you saw me out there, what would you do? If you saw me destroying that machine. When I fight, I destroy things, people, that get in my way. I was trained to do it, and everyone say it. HYDRA knows it.”  
“HYDRA already knew that you can fight. It’s-“  
“I’m a weapon.”  
“You’re human, not a-“  
“The people, those reporters, know that I am not to be trusted.”  
“They didn’t trust me.”  
“But they do now, James.”  
“So, they needed time. It will take time for you, too.”  
“For what? For them to find me? You heard them. I am not a legal citizen of the United States of America.”  
“We can take care of that.”  
“James, I need to be alone.”  
“I’ll be in the gym if you need me.”  
Bucky doesn’t leave until she nods, and then she watches him go, steady in her resolve.

~

May Parker looks out the window for her nephew, tapping her coffee mug’s rim in anxiety.  
May Parker likes to think of herself as a patient woman when it comes to certain things. Whether or not that is true is another thing.  
One of the situations that brings out the impatient May is when her nephew was supposed to be home over forty minutes ago. Three more minutes, and she’ll call Stark.  
When she sees him swing in from the open window of his bedroom, she sighs in relief.  
Until a woman is climbing in after him.  
Cue lightsaber-wielding Aunt May.  
The swing would have/could have taken off her head if it wasn’t for her ducking, kick, and her pin.  
Ow.  
“Wait, that’s my aunt!” A frantic Peter yells.  
The woman releases May’s neck and arm, letting the lightsaber fall to the floor and May to cough.  
“Are you okay?” Peter asks his aunt.  
“Who is that?” May coughs out, her eyes watering.  
“Gretchen,” the attacker answers.  
“You’re-“ May starts, finally able to get a good look at her. “That young woman on the news!”  
“Hello.”  
“Peter Benjamin Parker,” May begins.  
“I can explain, I promise!”

~  
Earlier...

Peter walks home from school, taking his time. The subway ride was long, and he resisted the urge to just don his suit and swing home, so he’s going to take his time to clear his head.  
Once he gets home, he’s going to get a snack, start on homework, and then he has to patrol. The time for thought is now.  
Of course, his thoughts are interrupted by the sound of pained cries.  
The high schooler looks down a nearby alleyway, and spots a bunch of women surrounding a man who is promptly knocked out, held up by two of the six women.  
“Aw, come on.”  
One woman holds up a sharp blade, about to stab his heart—what is this, a cult?—and, with no time to waste, Peter dives into the group, grabs the knife, and throws it.  
Now Peter’s without a mask, in the middle of a bunch of women with knives.  
Yeah, that wasn’t the only knife.  
Peter dodges stabs and jabs, grabbing a knife as it comes at him, disarming the woman before she can do anything, but other women are attacking, the two unarmed women are still conscious, and they’re all mad.  
Another woman drops down from the three-story building to his left, and the alley is filled with unconscious people, Peter, and the surprise woman in four seconds flat.  
“Whoa,” Peter utters, looking around.  
The woman checks for the unconscious man’s pulse, standing up once she finds it.  
“Is he okay?” Peter asks, anxious.  
The woman nods.  
“Hey, aren’t you the lady that was on the news?”  
She doesn’t answer.  
“You are! The way you took that robot out was so cool! They even gave you a cool name already! Madame Soldat sounds better in German than English, in my opinion. Not that it wouldn’t be sweet, but I just think that it sounds like a better name.”  
“My name is Gretchen,” the woman mutters more to herself than him.  
“Gretchen? My name’s Peter,” he exclaims, holding out a hand to shake, but she turns around and starts to walk away.  
“Wait!”  
She halts, turning back around like a soldier given an order, and then she cringes.  
“Uh, you don’t have to, sorry. I just wanted to talk to you.”  
“You have questions?” She asks.  
“I mean, yeah, but I wanted to say thanks for taking care of them,” Peter says, gesturing to the women that cover the alleyway ground.  
“You are welcome.”  
Gretchen takes off her bag, opening it to pull out zip ties, quickly securing the women’s wrists together like handcuffs.  
While she took them out, Peter got a look in her bag, noticing the clothing, nonperishable foods, and first-aid kit. She closes it to bind the women, but he got a good enough look.  
“We need to get him to a hospital,” Peter says, starting to pick up the unconscious man.  
Gretchen notices that he’s trying to act like it is difficult, but his muscles do not strain when he lifts him.  
In any case, she takes the load off.  
“Thanks.”  
“You did not need the help,” she says.  
“What do we do about these ladies?” Peter asks, looking at the women scattered on the ground.  
“After I leave, call the local law enforcement.”  
“Wait, you’re leaving?”  
“This man must go to the hospital to treat his injuries. There might be internal bleeding.”  
“Oh, um, I’ll go with you!”  
She stares at him.  
“I mean, uh, I just got in the middle of what looked like a cult murder in an alley! I might be traumatized! Someone should make sure that I get home.”  
“The police can,” Gretchen adds.  
“But what if I shouldn’t be left alone? What if- Uh, I could go into shock!”  
She knows that it’s an excuse, and she knows that it’s fake, but she lets Peter tag along anyway.  
“Call the officers,” Gretchen say as she starts to walk, the man being held in a fireman’s carry. “If you do not want to be traced, go into that shop and ask to borrow a phone. The boy running the register will not care.”  
“How do you know?”  
“I just do.”  
She checked out the place twenty minutes before. No cameras, little security, and no chance of being exposed. She was planning on spending the night there.  
“You’re going to wait here, right?” Peter asks before he tries to go into the shop.  
“I will wait in the alley,” she says, and then turns and enters in.  
This counts as leaving him alone, but she’s curious. The boy obviously has strength, and he covers it up? What would compel him to do such a thing?  
Two minutes later, Peter comes back.  
“What if they wake up before the police come?” Peter asks as they head towards the hospital.  
“They will not wake before they reach their cells,” she answers.  
Peter does not stop talking until they reach the hospital.  
“I told them the victim would be dropped off in a few minutes,” he said before they reached the doors, so Gretchen did so, and then left Peter there before he could follow.  
She did follow him, though.  
She watched him walk home, intending on making sure that he made it home okay.  
Until he went in a tall building, and a man in a red suit came swinging off it.  
A quick sweep of the building later, and Gretchen knew that the man in the suit was Peter.  
The boy went back in his suit to check on the women she knocked out, so she found him speaking to a police officer.  
After the police left, Gretchen jumped down from a rooftop as he turned around. She dropped her backpack to give him warning, but he already knew.  
“Uh, hi,” he says, pretending to not know her.  
“Peter,” she says calmly.  
“Uh, who?” The boy squeaks out.  
“Any other person might not catch it, but I was trained to look for weaknesses. Your acting needs assistance.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Don’t try to pick up people who are twice your weight unless you really need to. That gave away your strength.”  
“Oh.”  
“You are young,” she states.  
“I’m not that young!” Peter exclaims, his voice squeaking once again.  
“I was younger,” Gretchen says, turning to look at the alleyway. “I see that the law enforcement cleared out the enemies?”  
“Uh, they took them to jail.”  
“Go home.”  
“You aren’t going to tell anybody, are you?”  
“Your identity is still safe,” she says as she picks up her bag. “I will walk you home so that you get there.”  
She starts to walk in the direction of his apartment, but Peter stops her.  
“How do you know where I live?”  
“It is on the if found tag on your backpack,” she says.  
“Oh. I need to get that.”  
Peter had stowed his bag behind a dumpster on the way back to the alleyway.  
“We can stop by the bin.”  
“Uh, is there anything you need?”  
“Why?”  
“I saw what was inside your bag. It didn’t look like a lot.”  
“I am fine.”  
“Since you already know where I live, I might as well help. I already have to explain why I’m late to come home from school, so having a witness would help.”  
Honestly, having a witness might keep him from being murdered by his aunt.  
Might.

~

“Sorry, but at least I have an excuse!” Peter finishes the story with.  
“I apologize for disarming you,” Gretchen says to May.  
“I’m sorry for almost hitting you with a lightsaber,” she calmly replies. “As for Peter being late, he has a reason. The jumping into a fight happens more than I would like. Peter, why would you not put on your mask?”  
“I’m sorry, Aunt May! I didn’t have time!”  
“We have to figure out a way for that to not be a problem.”  
“I could go home as Spider-Man every day?”  
“You have as much of a chance of that as I do being a cat.”  
“What if you were bitten by a radioactive cat?”  
“I am not going to Oscorp, if that’s what you’re saying.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any complaints, questions, comments?  
> Have a blessed day!


	11. He Looks Nothing Like A Spider

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it took so long!

“Would you like some coffee?”  
"That would be appreciated."  
May pours Gretchen a cup, pulling out the milk and sugar for her to use.  
"I prefer black, but Peter likes his sweet," she explains.  
"Like chocolate?" She asks softly.  
"Ooh, chocolate's the best," Peter agrees.  
"You don't need any more sweets," May says.  
"But I'm a growing boy!"  
“A growing boy who drinks more coffee than he should.”  
“I’ve never had a cavity!”  
“So far. Now, go do your homework while I make dinner.”  
“Aunt May..."  
"Peter, don't make me use your full name."  
"Yes, ma'am," Peter sighs out. "Gretchen, um, ma'am, are you going to come back tomorrow?”  
"From your story, it sounds like she's in need of a good meal," May replies.  
May isn't the best at cooking.  
In any case, she sends Peter off to do homework, and then starts to make dinner.  
Gretchen’s not sure what it’s supposed to be, but from the looks of it, it is not going well.  
Ten minutes later, the fire alarm is going off, the food is blackened, and Aunt May is coughing.  
Gretchen does not. She simply opens a window—with permission—and turns on a fan.  
She hears the visitors before they come to the apartment door, already telling May before they knock.  
“I’ll take care of it,” May says, and then goes to answer the door.  
She finds Peter in his room, hearing the voices that filter through the front door.  
“The Avengers are here.”  
“What?” Peter asks, standing up. “Why? Does Mr. Stark need-“  
“They cannot know that I am here.”  
“They came for you? Karen must’ve told Mr. Stark that you were here!”  
“Karen?”  
“She’s an AI in my suit.”  
“A what?”  
“I can explain later. I’ve got a trapdoor in the ceiling of my closet where I used to keep my suit. Here, I’ll show you!”  
In the trap, there’s enough room for three people to squeeze into, and Gretchen decides that it’s probably for Peter and his aunt.  
By the looks of it, she could stay here for a while. There’s food, water, a blanket, DC comics, pencils, and a puzzle book, as well as a Bible.  
And there’s a red suit hidden underneath a blanket.  
Gretchen pauses and listens to the conversation in the living room.  
“You sure?”  
Stark.  
“Of course. Why would I not be?”  
“There are three places set at the table.”  
“Ned was supposed to come over later, but as you can see, he’s not here yet.”  
That is true, but Peter messaged Ned and told him that there was “something I’ll tell you about later, Ned. I gotta go.” Ned will not be coming over this evening, at least until the Avengers and the other non-Spiderman non-Avenger leaves the Parker household.  
“Uh-huh,” Tony says, doubt obvious in his voice.  
“Tony, I was just going to go down the street and get some Thai food. Did you all want to eat with us?”  
Gretchen opens the trapdoor, and climbs out the window.  
Two minutes later, she’s face-to-face with the Black Widow.  
“You ran from the Avengers, and you went to Spider-Man,” she says.  
“Who?” The clueless woman asks.  
“Peter. I know that he keeps a spare suit where you were hiding.”  
“He looks nothing like a spider.”  
And with that, she kicks at Natasha, but she flips and lands a punch to her shoulder. Gretchen crushes her elbow into the back of her knee, and the two spring apart, one of them—Gretchen—distancing herself.  
“Harboring me could get you arrested.”  
“We can protect you.”  
“I have to do something that you can’t be a part of. And James will follow me. I can lose the others, but if the Soldier follows, the mission might fail.”  
“Barnes is my friend. I have to tell him you’re here.”  
“Please. For his safety. For everyone’s. He can’t follow me.”  
“Where will you go? Russia? Germany? Africa?”  
“Why should the Experi- I. Why should I reveal that information?”  
“Maybe if you have a good reason, I can let you go alone.”  
“Iceland.”  
“Why?”  
“There is a recovery base there. My handler should be taking cover.”  
“I assume you’re not going there on a peaceful mission.”  
“I will not kill her.”  
“You and I both know that you can’t just take her in.”  
“You do not know who she is.”  
“Who is she?”  
“Ajara Agni.”  
Natasha stares level-headed, and then reaches in her pocket and tosses a small phone with a USB drive attached, which Gretchen deftly catches.  
“It’s a burner phone. The USB will show you where your alias’s information is. Keep me updated.”  
Then she switches on her com and speaks.  
“Found her on eighth street.”  
She switches it off, and then crosses her arms.  
“If you catch the upcoming train, you’ll be able to escape.”  
The sound of a loud train approaches, and Gretchen watches it get closer.  
“Follow the directions to the passport.”  
“Why do you have those?”  
“I knew you would need them. You have one week. Keep me posted. I can buy you some time, but we will track you eventually.”  
With a nod, Gretchen hops on the train.  
Thirty seconds later, the Avengers arrive.  
“Where is she?”  
“She ran.”  
“And you didn’t follow her?”  
“She caught the train.”  
“Since when are you afraid to catch a train?!?”  
Since never.  
Bucky watches his ally—thinking “friend” feels informal now, given the circumstances—and decides that she’s hiding something.  
Natalia always is.  
“I let her go.”  
“Why?” Bucky asks, level.  
“She’s going to bring in a threat.”  
Natasha walks away.  
~

To say that anyone could convince Natasha to talk when she doesn’t want to is a fairy tale for the Avengers. Clint’s her friend, and he does know a lot about her, but she is a trained assassin, and he knows when to stop asking.  
Sometimes.  
Bucky knows.  
Everyone knows not to ask, or they throw themselves into their work.  
Tony. Banner, but less so. Bucky.  
Clint—the wise person that he is—went home to be with his wife, children, and the new dog—Lucky—that they found on the side of a road.  
Bucky ignored Natasha, pummeling punching bags and barely talking—granted, the last two things are not new.  
Steve is a good friend, and Jarvis is, too, but sometimes it’s just hard to socialize.  
Bucky has experienced this dip in his mood where he’s normal, scowls mixed with cheap jokes at Stevie’s expense, and then he feels great one day—being better than usual—and he’s talking and laughing, and then the next day, he’s feeling squashed. Deflated. Like a flattened balloon.  
The man was feeling good that day—he could feel it coming, but it’s hard to halt in its tracks—and then she left, and he was upset, sure, but that’s because he wanted to help when it’s so hard for him, and then the one he might’ve been able to help left and got back into the dangerous world.  
He still hadn’t hit that day, and then he got there.  
That was four days ago, and now he’s back to normal, since it usually lasts maybe a day.  
During that day, it was hard. Now it’s normal, and he’s been on the internet, searching for Gretchen.  
She started training first, but her programming broke.  
Someone will find her, and then he can help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> His mood dip is not because of Gretchen.  
> I have had a really great day, and the next was terrible, so this is sorta from experience.  
> Have a blessed week!


	12. May Hydra Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm alive. i know that I have not updated in a while.  
> A character tries to get hurt instead of letting another person, so. Beware of that in this chapter.  
> Also, Ward is not bad in this fic, Coulson is still in hiding and is okay, director of SHIELD, and is the other voice on the line/coms, and they're trying to take in some threats, like Ajara Agni, who is really not the main focus of this story, but I wanted Gretchen to go and get the woman who controlled her for years.  
> Only about twenty-five years. It's a long time, but she doesn't remember all of it.But she is still aware of some of it.  
> Let's just hope that no one gets upset about this being a short chapter. Sorry. At least this part is over, and fun can begin! (When I say fun, I basically mean that the next part should be our two love soldiers arguing. Awww.

**Three weeks later.**

“Ticket, ma’am?”

The woman brushes her blonde hair out of her face as she searches for her ticket, swiftly and gracefully pulling it out of her black purse to hand it to the conductor.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he says, punching a hole into it and handing it back, moving up the aisle.

“Ticket, sir?”

The woman scans the other passengers, searching for any familiar heads.

There could be someone wearing a wig, but she watched their faces as she came down the aisle, and no one was from SHIELD.

Of course, there could be a mask.

Three train cars over, Ajara Agni is sipping on a cup of bitter coffee, staring ahead, her goons surrounding her.

Countdown.

Ten seconds.

Gretchen gets up.

Nine.

Slips past the conductor.

Eight.

Pushes her sunglasses back more to stay off her face, pushing it to stay on her hair like a headband, her blonde wig strands still hanging in her face.

Seven.

Feels the once cold of her non-lethal gun press against her equally warm skin.

Six.

Steps into the next train car.

Five.

Comes face-to-face with a man in a suit.

“I’m sorry,” she laughs out, covering, bringing the light into her eyes.

“Excuse me,” he says, passing.

“Ward, we have a problem,” a voice says in his com.

“What is it?” He asks once he thinks she’s out of earshot.

“The Black Widow is here.”

Gretchen does not falter as she hears that.

“Did she see you?” Ward asks.

“No.”

“What now?”

“Proceed with caution. I’ll send May to give you the device. Stand by for instructions.”

“What do I do if she spots me?”

“And recognizes you as an agent? Improvise. She doesn’t know you work with me.”

“Yeah, ‘cause she thinks you’re dead.”

“Let’s keep it that way for the time being. May’s almost to you.”

“Is the Black Widow here to neutralize the threat?”

“If she is, we have to act fast. We don’t know how she’ll do it.”

Gretchen hears it all before she’s in the next train car.

And then she sits next to Natasha, who’s looking completely at home.

“Do you know a Ward?”

“Ward? No.”

“I heard he is an agent, but an agent of what is the question. I heard him speaking to someone on the coms, and they know you are here. They are discussing a threat.”

“Ajara Agni?”

“Are you here for her?”

“I came here because Barnes found you, and he’s coming this way.”

“When?”

“About thirty seconds.”

Gretchen gets up and goes to the next train car, immediately seizing the woman.

She takes out the handcuffs that Romanoff kindly had waiting for her, along with a passport, IDs, and an icer, and she cuffs the woman to the train, taking out the guards as she does.

“Experiment 346,” Ajara Agni says coolly.

“My name is Gretchen.”

“Ah, I see you are remembering. Come with me. Ich kann das reparieren.”

I can fix that.

“May Hydra fall,” Gretchen says with a tone that is colder than the other woman’s.

Ward—the man in the suit—walks in, taking in the guards, Ajara Agni, and the woman no longer giggling, as she had done when they had bumped into each other.

And then Bucky comes in, looking like he’s been torn apart.

Bucky jumped on the train, but then some agents got in the way, and would not let him through.

They’re alive, but knocked out.

So, he doesn’t look that great, and his metal arm is showing.

So, when a guard comes in and sees the situation, the young woman shoots blindly, and Gretchen twists to protect her prisoner.

The bullet pierces her abdomen, and she falls to the floor, blood blossoming like a flower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a blessed day!


	13. You're Our Little Blessing

 

Two days later.

Her eyes open to see a white ceiling, white walls, and a dim light. Her ears take in the sound of beeping, and she smells the scent of flowers that are now wilting, even though they’ve only been there for a couple of days.

Her eyes are tired, but they stay open long enough to spot a man with a metal arm asleep on a chair nearby.

And then they drift closed.

 

~

 

She is semi-conscious on and off for the next week.

When she fell, she hit her head on a bar, and then Ajara Agni—who was still handcuffed but could kick—did so about three times before Ward pulled her off.

Bucky tried to stop the bleeding, but by the time medics could get there, she had lost enough blood to create a puddle on the floor.

By the time she was out of her final surgery, she had lost forty percent of her blood.

Bucky wanted to donate, and so did Cap, but they didn’t have the right Type, and then any other people who were not super soldiers or like them could not donate, because it could cause more harm to Gretchen.

Peter Parker stepped up.

Peter is not actually a super soldier, but it is close enough to successfully be given to Gretchen—according to Dr. Banner and Dr. Cho.

With Peter’s O-negative blood, the soldier now had a donor.

Now it has been a week since she was shot, and she is still only conscious for a few minutes at a time, and even then, she isn’t responding to anyone.

She can hear, see, smell, feel, and taste, and she still isn’t responding.

Her eyes don’t track anyone’s movements, and they don’t stay open long.

Waking up from her coma is painful. The medicine isn’t enough to take the pain away, and it makes her want to go back to sleep, but the soldier doesn’t want to stay asleep when the mission wasn’t finished. That she knows of. The target was apprehended, but then during that shot, when the soldier thought that the mission was more important than her own life, she blacked out.

She resists the pain and opens her eyes.

White ceiling. White walls.

She can’t move her neck very well, but she does manage to see a man.

She can see his lips moving, but his words are hard to understand.

He rubs a hand over his scruffy face, running it through his hair, and then looks up, his eyes seeing hers open.

The man’s mouth opens, and he looks relieved, and he says something, but it’s so hard to understand, and her eyes shut soon after.

 

~

 

Four more days of this, not being able to hear very well, but it does get clearer.

She does recognize people now.

Bucky is there most of the time, but sometimes there’s a new person.

Peter talking about a movie in space, barely taking breaths between sentences. She’s reluctant to go back to sleep then, but when other people are around, it’s usually more boring.

Clint flicking rubber bands across the room. Natasha reading a book. Sam promising to make waffles when she wakes up and can eat food. Steve drawing or something in a little notebook. Wanda playing with a teddy bear that winds up on the nightstand that is overflowing with stuffed bears, puppies, flowers, and cards, and a little Hulk figurine that she woke up to see Stark sneaking in, which was cute, but she usually wouldn’t even think about that. Vision usually tells her about his latest mishap when he was cooking. May came over once that Gretchen knows of, and she listened to Peter with her.

It was quite nice.

Dr. Banner mostly came to check up on her, even though there was another doctor in charge.

Dr. Cho? Yes, Helen Cho. Gretchen vaguely remembers hurting her when she first woke up and tried to murder Cap.

Finally, her days of drifting slowly dwindle until she is awake for more than small snippets at a time, and Dr. Banner is asking her how she feels.

“I am healing satisfactorily.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“What do you need to know?”

“I want to know what hurts, how much, and if anything is numb, and then I want to know your mental state, if you could tell me.”

“My abdomen and head hurt, but how much is problematic to answer.”

“Why? Is anything numb?”

“As the Experim- As a _soldier_ , I was trained to push the pain to the back burner until it… fell off the stove. I was never to feel pain—or react to it—or my handlers would inflict real pain.”

“What about your mental state?” Banner asks, and a light hint of green tints at his skin around his neck as he tries to grasp what horrible implications that could mean.

“I am feeling… tired. I apologize, that is all. Except, where is James?”

She hasn’t seen him in about four days, since she started to wake up more.

“I can tell him that you want to see him. He is currently in the gym, last I heard.”

“May I leave now?”

“No, you could tear your stitches. Your injuries were bad enough that if you were not a super soldier, you probably would have died, or at least been bed-ridden for months. It’s only been about two weeks, and since you heal only slightly slower than Peter, you should be able to get around in three days without someone being forced to make you stay. You can get up, but only for a short time.”

“How short?”

“As long as it would take to go to the bathroom. Mild exercise by a normal injured person’s standards. A bullet hit one of your major arteries—the aorta—and most people would be dead right now.”

“I’ve been blessed,” Gretchen says as a mental image of a happy man with dark hair and eyes picking her up, the image in her point of view, but she was small.

_“You’re our little blessing, Bunny,” the man says, distant in her ears._

_“Higher, Father!” She squealed._

Her sight clears to see Dr. Banner rummaging in his bag.

She shakes her head slightly, and immediately regrets it not because of the pain it causes, but of the image fading.

“May I have some paper and a pen?”

“Of course. Do you mind if we finish first? We don’t have much left.”

 

~

 

By the time she got paper and a pen, the image was almost gone. At first, she tried to draw it, but it was too fuzzy, so she put a description beside the smudged picture, staring at it until it was ingrained in her memory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anything to add? Ideas? Comments?  
> Thanks for reading!  
> Have a blessed day! <3  
> Jesus loves you!


	14. We Care About You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not my best chapter in my opinion, but whatever.

“You’re alive!” Peter yells as soon as he opens the door.  
“You knew that I was alive,” she says, not surprised at all to see him, as she could hear him talking to Aunt May outside the door—who is now going to go see Stark.  
“Yeah, but now you’re awake! For long periods of time! Sorry I couldn’t visit for a while. There was this cool guy who could electrocute people, and he was trying to take out the city’s power.”  
“I heard. The city went dark for an hour.”  
“I know! Electro was so cool! The guy just needed some attention, so, now I have to bake him a cake next week for a surprise birthday party. Now he’s in jail, but it’s the thought that counts, and he’s already making friends.”  
“That is very nice of you, Peter.”  
“If I can get Aunt May to not try to help. She can bake, but I want to do it this time. She’s too busy as it is. Oh! She’ll be in here later. She needed to talk to Mr. Stark.”  
“What is wrong with your suit?”  
“Oh. Electro zapped it, so, now May’s going to pretend to be calm while she’s flipping out.”  
“Are you all right, Peter?”  
“I’m fine. Just a little tired. But it was so cool! Electro just came and zapped me when I showed up, and the whole thing is on YouTube! I did this really cool kick I’ve been trying to get for weeks! Do you wanna see?”  
Gretchen nods, as the gymnastics part of his job really appeal to her. She can flip and such, but she doesn’t usually need to.  
Peter, however, does.  
Quite a bit, judging by the video of the fight.  
“Electro is so cool!” Peter finally says, sitting down, putting his phone in his pocket.  
“Your fighting style is interesting, Peter.”  
“Is that a good thing?”  
“You should ground yourself more when you throw a punch. It would be safer for you, and you could hit harder.”  
“I don’t want to hit harder! That could hurt the person.”  
“If you do not want to hurt the assailant, perhaps you should learn to control your blows more, and consider the best possible ways to do so.”  
“Black Widow’s been training me, and so has Cap. And Bucky.”  
“Perhaps I could show you some of what I learned during my time in the Program. I know a few flips that could assist you. For instance, there is one that could have prevented you from being electrocuted.”  
“Really? I was stuck between two walls that could barely fit me in between them. I couldn’t have flipped there if I tried.”  
“It is a difficult move, but I am sure that Agent Romanoff would agree that you are capable. With training, of course.”  
“I want to get better, but I haven’t been able to train much lately. School is killing me, crime’s been up, and the last few weeks have been insane.”  
“I apologize. I realize that my absence caused some concern.”  
“It’s totally fine! It’s not like you were doing anything super bad. It’s just that the Avengers couldn’t find you, and they can usually find anyone within a couple of days, tops. And that can freak out some people. You know, when someone you care about disappears like that.”  
“You sound like you speak from experience.”  
“I passed out in a dumpster after falling from three stories, and I woke up two days later in the med bay ‘cause they found me twelve hours after I fell. May was, uh, upset.”  
“Yes, but she cares about you very much.”  
“And we care about you! You’re totally awesome, and you’re nice, and it wasn’t your fault that you tried to kill Cap and stuff, but now you’re okay, and then you ran off, and Bucky couldn’t find you, and he’s the Winter Soldier! The guy’s got a metal arm, can punch through walls, and can track a rabbit for miles. I know that because of a villain who put explosives in collars and put them on bunnies, and then tried to blow up the forest. It was crazy, but Bucky tracked them, so, he should’ve been able to track you, and barely anyone slept until you were back, and then you almost died!”  
Peter sucks in a breath, red-faced from the lack of oxygen.  
“I mean, we care about you, and no one wants you to die.”  
Gretchen changes the subject, processing everything.  
“Thank you, Peter. I do know that everyone has visited since I was shot.”  
She pauses, ignoring the fact that she wants to continue on with the conversation.  
“Perhaps I could begin to train you after I am released, if you would like.”  
“That would be awesome.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No animals were harmed in here! The bunnies never blew up, and no forests were hurt.  
> Questions, comments, concerns? Ideas, anyone? Is the Bucky/Gretchen thing going too slow?  
> Have a blessed day! Jesus loves you!


	15. It Was My Choice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long.

The days pass, and finally, she is allowed to leave the hospital ward. She could have left, but even with the chip gone, she’s still struggling to not obey all the time as if she has to. Granted, it is nice to do what your doctor tells you normally, but the choice is hers, and that’s the point that she needs to keep in mind, even though with big decisions—like stepping in front of a bullet for someone who tortured her—are hers to make, and she remembers that for those.  
It’s the little ones that get her, like choosing between popcorn or caramel corn when Peter offered her some the other day, or whether or not she wants to listen to the radio or not, or watch something on television.  
She chose both for the first—she favors the caramel corn, and the other day she did listen to the classical music station, and she never really decided on that last one, but when the last one happened, Sam said that she doesn’t have to decide, but whatever she wants can happen.  
She’s fighting to keep her choices being made by herself, not any agent, but her last big choice seemed to leave her in a spot that almost ended with her dead.  
And after she started to wake up more, James stopped visiting, and the people who would tell her why mostly said that they could guess why, but the actual reason could be something else.  
But now she is walking out of the elevator, headed for the gym where James is training.  
She asked Jarvis where he was, and the AI told her promptly, letting her confront him.  
She sees James pounding on a punching bag, one hand wrapped in tan strips to protect it, the other gleaming in the artificial light.  
She doesn’t wait for him to stop.  
“James.”  
James stops his pounding, turning to give her his attention, even though he really was only halfway through.  
“You’re up.”  
It isn’t a question, of course. Only a fact.  
“Are you all right?” She asks, because that’s the only question she has right now.  
Bucky just stopped visiting, so, she assumed that he was working on something.  
She had asked if he was on a mission, but when she did ask Natasha—who just put down her book at first, face blank—she got her answer.  
“No.”  
“Is he injured?”  
“No, he’s fine. He’s been training.”  
Still, she knew the files of the Winter Soldier, and even though James is different, he still went through the training, just like how Gretchen trained and is still a soldier, even with her newfound freedom.  
James would train even if he was hurt, as long as he could. Gretchen hasn’t been able to, but now that she is, she is determined to.  
James looks sort of confused by her question, so she continues.  
“You stopped visiting, and no one would expand on what you were doing. Besides training.”  
“I’m not hurt.”  
“Understood.”  
A pause.  
“Are you okay?”  
Bucky did have certain Avengers keep him updated, as well as Jarvis, as he was worried for her, but he was ready to spaz, and shouting at Gretchen during that time would not be a good idea, and though he is better, he still worries about losing it sometimes.  
Granted, that’s usually after a nightmare, or, more often, a night terror.  
“I am healing satisfactorily. Dr. Cho has permitted me to leave the ward, and I will be sent back to my quarters this evening, as I have been released.”  
“How is your bullet wound?”  
“It is healing well. Do you have information on Ajara Agni? I was not cleared to know such information before.”  
“She’s in prison.”  
“She has been punished?”  
“She’s still being investigated. Stark wants everything she’s done up front so we won’t have any surprises.”  
“But the laws have been enforced?”  
“Yes.”  
“Thank you, James.”  
“She’ll be in prison for the rest of her life.”  
“If that is the law, then, yes.”  
“You could have died doing what you did.”  
“I have been told that I almost did.”  
“What was it for, a mission? Was it something they did to make you protect her? Because if they’re still controlling you, we can fix that. I mean, we can’t, but we know some people who can, since they helped me.”  
“It was not a mission.”  
“And no one’s controlling you?”  
“No.”  
“Then why did you protect her?” James asks, and it’s not the calmest he could be, but he’s not quite shouting yet.  
“I saw the bullet’s course, and if I had not moved her instead of letting myself be shot, and if she was safe that way, someone else was going to die because of it. I chose my course of action.”  
“You chose to almost die to protect someone who controlled you for years?!?”  
Now he’s shouting.  
“I chose to protect her, yes.”  
“We have files on what she did to you, and all of those other girls! You weren’t the first, and you weren’t the last, but you were the only one to survive out of all of those girls, and there were little boys, too! They all died!”  
An image of snarling dogs comes to mind, children in metal cages crying out as the dogs snap at any child who is too close to the edges of her cage.  
But that was before Agni’s time to rule, and Gretchen’s handlers before were more focused on keeping the children out of their way when they needed to.  
Agni isn’t her only handler now—no, she has no handler, since she’s free—as women are still not allowed to truly be in charge there, as there aren’t even any female doctors or top scientists in the Program, but Gretchen knows that when the Program failed—when she was captured—the only person who would know where the last handler would be would be Agni.  
She remembers how she no longer had contact with her handler, when they tried to kill her, and she wanted to live.  
She was the only Experiment left, and they could not remake what made her enhanced, as the only person who knew the foreign key ingredient in the serum just happened to be dead—Gretchen remembers how he programmed her to kill him, but she only remembers that because they never wiped that memory, wanting her to remember the death—the only death that she would be permitted to remember without something blocking important information, at least until the chip was removed, and now bits of memories are coming back.  
That scientist stopped breathing far before she stopped trying to kill him, and she was still trying when the guards came.  
The Program is a part of Hydra, but what is left of it is small.  
After all, Gretchen doesn’t know it yet, but Bucky knows that—according to the files—the plan after cutting communication to Gretchen, and after she was dead, the scientists, guards, and cleanup crew—everyone but the handlers—were going to die, and they most certainly did.  
It was bloody, but they did it, and pictures of the damage were included in the files that Agni had.  
“Agni is a coward,” she finally says. “She will pay for her crimes.”  
“Do you know about the other…”  
Bucky does not want to say the word handler.  
“My other handler. Erin Walker.”  
“Every other member is dead besides Agni.”  
“What about Walker? The main handler should have been-“  
“Agni poisoned him, and they found him in the train luggage.”  
The train. She was there to carry the body somewhere else.  
“Walker is dead?” She tries to ask, but it comes out as a flat statement.  
She does not feel relieved. She just wanted them to face the law, and she did not want them to die.  
And now one of them is dead.  
“Are you okay?” Bucky asks, and Gretchen nods.  
“I will go to my chambers so that you can continue training.”  
"Gretchen-"  
"Do not ask again why I did it, James," she snaps, and then seems to wilt. "It was my choice."  
She straightens.  
"Agni has faced the law. That is what I wanted. The Program is gone."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if I know what I'm doing with this fic.  
> Hurt and healing to come. Ah, the angst.  
> Have a blessed day!


	16. This Is What She Likes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's so short.

 

The days pass slowly at first, and then they seem to speed up when the weekend comes, and Peter is around more often.

Gretchen started to train him after school—he’d drop by, and they’d train in the gym, but then other Avengers would be around sometimes, so, when it was her turn with him, and he wanted to patrol, she taught him on the job.

But when the weekend came, Peter got an idea.

It was during their break, when civilians could look up at a tall building and see the two perched on the edge, Peter wearing his suit, Gretchen in normal clothing, since the media has already seen her face.

The last few days, she has been shown on the television on the news every day, running around with Spider-Man, fighting crime and dropping criminals off to the police.

Not everyone is pleased—some man named J. Jonah Jameson especially—but, as usual, Gretchen ignores them.

She likes this.

She _likes_ fighting with Peter, sparring, teaching him how to avoid attacks when they come, catching criminals and turning them over to be dealt with by the law. She _likes_ resting when she wants to, buying sandwiches from Mr. Delmar’s, petting his cat, feeling the soft coat of the feline as it purrs at her touch.

She _likes_ being able to take a break and see the way that the sun glints off the tall buildings around them, like now, where no one has noticed them yet, and she can think and talk and listen, and someone actually cares.

She _likes_ hearing about Peter’s day at school, and how his friends are, even though she hasn’t met them yet.

And that is why she isn’t surprised when Peter suddenly breaks the short-lived silence with his idea.

“Why don’t you come over for dinner?” He says excitedly. “May’s cooking, but after she burns it, she’ll vote for Thai food again.”

“Would your aunt mind?”

“She’d probably be more upset if you didn’t come. Please?”

“If she does not mind, I would gladly visit.”

After she says that, the sounds of a bank robbery are heard, and the two spring into action, charging to help.

 _This_ is what she likes.

 

It’s Saturday night, and Peter has spent the last five hours doing homework, chores, and helping May try not to burn the food, which she does anyway, but it’s surprisingly still edible.

Peter doesn’t hear Gretchen approach the door, which is weird because usually the only people who can sneak up on him are Natasha and Bucky, so, he jumps when someone knocks.

“Hi, Gretchen!”

Tony won’t let him live it down that he can call her Gretchen but not him Tony, but it’s just _harder_ with him.

“Hello, Peter.”

“Guess what!”

“Your aunt did not burn everything.”

“Only the garlic bread! She usually burns the meat, too, but she didn’t this time, and the spaghetti and sauce is only slightly overcooked!”

“That’s great. I stopped by Mr. Delmar’s and picked up some snacks.”

She holds up the bag that he hadn’t noticed, and he can see the chocolate and gummi bears through the plastic.

“Yes!”

“Close the door, Peter,” May calls from the kitchen.

“Sorry!” He says, and then closes it after Gretchen comes inside. “Ooh, Gretchen! I found a new show to watch! I’ve only see the first episode, but it’s called Atomic Puppet, and it’s about a superhero who got turned into a puppet who can only have his powers by teaming up with a sixth-grader!”

“How did that happen?”

“His ex-sidekick.”

“Oh. Betrayal.”

“We can watch that if you want, unless May wants to join us, because she still wants to show you Monsters Inc.”

May had already explained what Monsters Inc. was about, and it sounds interesting.

“I would like to watch Monsters Incorporated.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's so short. It's just kinda... I have a little, but I would like some ideas, like how Bucky and Gretchen can get back on speaking terms.  
> Any suggestions?  
> Happy (late) Resurrection Sunday!  
> Have a blessed day! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. :)  
> Have a blessed day!


End file.
